UFC on FX 7 Notebook: Manufactured Hate

“The Ultimate Fighter” Season 3 winner will meet Vitor
Belfort in the
UFC on FX 7 headliner on Saturday at the Ibirapuera Arena in
Sao Paulo, Brazil. Bisping has been promised his long-sought shot
at
Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight king Anderson
Silva, should he emerge victorious from the five-round battle
with “The Phenom.” It comes as little surprise that he has learned
to dislike Belfort, the man who stands between him and his golden
opportunity.

“I have nothing personal against Vitor,” Bisping said during the
pre-fight press conference. “He seems like a decent bloke, and he’s
a hell of a fighter. Yeah, he said some things. He said I was a
hooligan. That comment was probably made as a joke, but, for me,
I’m going to fight this guy, so I take that personally because I
need to. I like to take any little thing and turn it into a big
thing, to get me emotional, to get me mad because, at the end of
the day, this isn’t a game of tennis.

“We’re going to get in there, and we’re going to fight, and if I’m
a little pissed off at the guy, then I’ll fight a hell of a lot
better,” he added. “We can apologize afterwards. We can shake
hands. I’ll buy the guy a drink after I beat him.”

Belfort returns to the 185-pound division after his failed bid to
unseat light heavyweight champion Jon Jones in
September. A devastating striker blessed with otherworldly hand
speed, he has earned a reputation as a fast starter who tends to
fade late in bouts. He aims to shed that label at Bisping’s
expense.

“It doesn’t matter how long this fight lasts,” said Belfort, who
owns a mediocre 4-5 record in fights that reach the judges. “Myself
and my camp, we made a deal, and I’m not lying. If it lasts one,
two or three rounds, I am still going to finish everything that I
trained for inside of the gym. I am going to finish for 25 minutes.
I am ready for 25 minutes of a tough fight.”

Bisping, one of the UFC’s best-conditioned athletes, shrugged at
the thought.

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Photo

Gonzaga has finished 13 fights.

“It’s all well and good,” he said. “It sounds like he’s convincing
himself he can do 25 minutes, that after the fight he’s going to go
to the changing room and do another 25 minutes. I don’t need to
make bets with my teammates to say that I have conditioning. I know
I have conditioning. I can do 25 minutes stood on my head.

“I’ll see you in the Octagon,” he added, “and you and your friends
can go have a little training session after I kick the s--- out of
you.”

Heavy Lifting

The last time Gabriel
Gonzaga won more than two fights in a row, he was the number
one contender for the UFC heavyweight championship. Much has
changed since 2007.

Gonzaga will put his modest two-fight winning streak on the line
against former
International Fight League cornerstone Ben Rothwell
when the two lock horns in a featured heavyweight tilt. The
33-year-old Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt expects the seasoned
Rothwell to pose a serious test.

“He is a well-rounded fighter and is a big name in the sport,”
Gonzaga said in his pre-fight interview with UFC.com. “He’s a very
tough and experienced fighter with a lot of fights [under his
belt].”

Rothwell last appeared at UFC 145 in April, when he needed all of
70 seconds to knock out “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 10 finalist
Brendon Schaub at Philips Arena in Atlanta. However, the
31-year-old Kenosha, Wis., native has not recorded consecutive
victories in more than five years.

“I’m training to finish this fight,” Rothwell said.

This & That

Since the Ultimate Fighting Championship opened for business in
1993, it has held five events in Brazil: UFC 17.5, UFC 134, UFC
142, UFC 147 and UFC 153 ... C.B.
Dollaway, who faces Daniel
Sarafian in an underwhelming co-main event, won a national
wrestling championship at Colby Community College in Colby, Kan. He
went on to become an All-American at Arizona State University ...
All eight of Godofredo
Castro’s wins have come by knockout, technical knockout or
submission. His opponent, Milton
Vieira, has never been finished in 22 professional appearances
... Nik
Lentz was undefeated from Aug. 2, 2007 to Dec. 10, 2011, with
12 wins, two draws and a no contest ... Francisco
Trinaldo’s nickname, “Massaranduba,” means redwood in
Portuguese ... Wagner
Prado recorded seven of his first eight wins by KO or TKO, six
of them inside one round ... Three fighters will enter the Octagon
unbeaten at UFC on FX 7: Khabib
Nurmagomedov (18-0), Lucas
Martins (12-0) and Andrew
Craig (8-0).